Psychiatric nurses burnt out and have low morale, report finds

PSYCHIATRIC nurses are burnt out, suffering from low morale and need more training to keep up with changes in the system, a study has found.

The issue of burn-out among nurses has to be addressed specifically through better education and in-service training, according to the study by staff in the Midlands Health Board.

Morale has also been affected by criticism at national level of the manner in which the service operates, in the Inspector for Mental Hospital’s report.

More than 440 nurses in the region took part in the study. It found that they need more training in areas such as counselling, drug and alcohol misuse, pharmacology and different therapies, including behavioural therapy.

It also found that psychiatric nurses need more IT training and more help in adapting from an institutional model of care towards a community care system.

The relevancy of some educational courses for psychiatric nurses was questioned in the report and it recommended more time be given to nurses to retrain or upskill.

As many as half of the nurses who responded to the survey said that they simply couldn’t get time off for retraining, because of a lack of other staff to provide cover.

Launching the report, Minister of State at the Department of Health and Children Tim O’Malley said that the recommendations in the report on the education and training needs of psychiatric nurses in the Midland Health Board would be taken on board by his department.